


Like Father, Like Daughter

by Godspeed_Cowboy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Blood and Injury, Character Death, Child Abandonment, Childbirth, Dad Uchiha Madara, Dead Uchiha Izuna, F/M, Fatherhood, Fights, Generation Swap, Haruno Sakura Has Issues, Haruno Sakura-centric, I based Sakura after Brienne from GOT, Injury, Konohagakure | Hidden Leaf Village, Loss of Parent(s), Madara is a very doting father and will do anything for his daughter, Mebuki dies first chapter, Mebuki looks different here, Orphans, Other, Parental Death, Permanent Injury, Protective Uchiha Madara, References to Depression, Sad, Single Parents, Some chapters will be told through Madara's POV but most will be through Sakura's POV, Strong Haruno Sakura, Trauma, Uchiha Madara Has Issues, War, Warring States Period (Naruto), and you will see it in later chapters, loss of sight, she got the pink hair and green eyes, that last one happens later, time swap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26422087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Godspeed_Cowboy/pseuds/Godspeed_Cowboy
Summary: In which Mebuki hails from a different time and falls for a different man.And Sakura has a different father and a different life as a result.
Relationships: Haruno Mebuki/Uchiha Madara, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Madara, I KNOW THAT SOUNDS WEIRD BUT TRUST ME, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 24
Kudos: 194





	1. Prologue: Birth

**Author's Note:**

> This concept would literally not leave me alone until I wrote it.
> 
> Also, I highly recommend listening to Fantasy by DyE on loop while reading this, as it is Sakura's theme song for this,, but don't watch the music video if you're sensitive to body horror, blood, and sexual themes.
> 
> Twitter: @YeehawMitski

There is a bundle in his arms, one that’s crying, twisting, and it’s so small, so _fragile_ , and he’s so afraid for it, afraid _of_ it.

But Madara clutches it close to his chest anyways, his red hands staining the grey fabric wrapped around it, muffling the cries just a little bit. There is a body in front of him, rapidly losing consciousness, losing life, and outside there’s the sounds of battle, of war. Currently, the Uchiha and the Senju are ganging up on their shared enemy, the Kaguya, who decided to ambush the two families during the fight.

They’re hiding beneath the earth, within a cave that’s dimly lit from the light outside. He glances towards the mouth of their hiding spot, fearing that someone would fall through and attack. But it doesn’t happen, it never will. Instead, the body croaks, lifts a hand.

Madara moves as fast as he can without disturbing the bundle in his arms further. He helps the body, the woman, his _lover_ , sit up.

He didn’t want to bring her here, but she was one of the medics hired from outside of the family, and her duty was to heal them on the field. But the problem was that she was pregnant, and her water had broken a month too early. Madara had been keeping track. Worse even, one of the Kaguya had managed to land a hit on her while she was distracted. And so they’d had to take cover, they’d had to make due, and she’d guided a panicked Madara through all the necessary steps. Ten hours later, the battle still went on with neither side wanting to retreat in fear of serious losses and consequences, and there was now a third member of their party.

They still couldn’t plug up the gapping hole in her side, though. He made sure to be careful to not open it further when moving her.

“Let me see!” she gasps, “Let me _see_! Let me _hold_!”

So he does. He passes the package in his arms to her as best as he can. With his newly freed arm, he can support her more.

Her face is tired but happy, looking down at the life in her arms.

Looking down at their child. Their _child_ , their _baby_ , and wow, isn’t that something. The woman laughs tiredly.

Mebuki tilts her head up to look at him, pride in her eyes even as her lids flutter, twitch. Madara caresses her cheek, giving her a peck on the forehead as he settles behind her, letting her lean on his chest.

He can protect both of them this way. He won’t have to watch out for his back and his arms and legs are more than capable of shielding the two if he has to.

“Congrats,” he whispers into her hair, “it’s a girl.”

She laughs, weak, and Madara’s heart _hurts_ , “I guessed as much.”

He goes along with the conversation, though, “Really? How?”

“Instinct!”

Madara chuckles at that. She knocks her head against his shoulder, grumbling at him for doing so. And then there’s silence. 

“. . . What do . . . What do you want to name her?” he asks.

Mebuki hums, looking back down at the baby. She moves some of the fabric out of the way, to get a better look at her. The baby squints, blinking, whining.

She has big green eyes and wisps of pink hair on her head, two traits from Mebuki. But Madara sees some of his own on her little face already, like her nose, her forehead. She’s clean now, her skin still tinted pink, but at least she’s no longer covered in her mother’s fluids. He leans his face over Mebuki’s shoulder as his hands come up to cover hers, brushing the babe’s hair with his fingers. It’s funny how she’s only been in this world for minutes and yet he’s already becoming attached.

“. . . Sakura.”

“Sakura?”

“Sakura,” she says, but it’s slurred, and her grip is starting to grow slack, and Madara is reminded painfully of her wound again.

His arms tighten around hers.

“That’s a lovely name,” he chokes out, holding back his tears. 

“It fits her nicely, don’t you think so, Mada?”

“I-I do.”

There’s tears running down his face, he realises, and he shoves his head into Mebuki’s shoulder. She reaches up with a hand, running her fingers through his hair, shushing him. It only makes him cry harder.

“It’s gonna be okay, Mada . . . It’s gonna be okay . . .”

Madara wants to disagree, but he doesn’t.

There’s only his crying and her shushing for a few minutes before she speaks up again.

“Mada, can you look at me?”

He lifts his head, and his sharingan is spinning, taking in her every feature, every word and movement, for one last time.

“Can you promise me something?”

“Anything,” he croaks, “I’d promise you anything.”

She looks him in the eyes. He doesn’t look away.

“I need you to protect her, Madara. I need you to protect her, care for her, _love_ her. Can you do that for me? Can you make sure she grows up knowing she’s loved by her precious people? Can you give her a life, a _better_ one?”

“As you wish,” he says.

It is his child after all, his flesh and blood, and he is an Uchiha. And it is only fair for him to live up to his last name for his wife and child. And he would do anything for them. All they had to do was simply ask.

Besides, Sakura already has him wrapped around her chubby little finger.

Mebuki smiles at him, and his heart squeezes in his chest, tight.

“Thank you, Madara . . . I love you.”

She leans forward, and Madara gets the message.

“I love you, too, Mebuki.”

They kiss, and it’s filled with words unsaid, sorrows heavy. He keeps his eyes open for all of it, recording every last second ad feeling.

When they pull away, she sighs. They don’t talk anymore.

Thirty minutes go by in silence, simply basking in each others’ presence, before her arms finally relax and Madara is left to hold Sakura himself. He feels the very moment she takes her last breath. It is only then that he stops his sharingan, the red slowly fading to black. But he doesn’t move. 

Another thirty minutes go by, and the fighting begins to quiet down.

Fifteen minutes later, it’s quiet, and a shadow appears over them, a person standing over the cave. Madara tenses, ready to fight.

“Madara?” they call out.

Oh. Slowly, he relaxes. It is only his cousin, Hikaku.

“Madara, are you in there?”

He sighs, “Yes. Give me a moment. I’ll be out in a second.”

There is no reply, but the shadow moves away.

Carefully, he moves Sakura to lay on the ground, and she makes a sound of protest.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, little one, it’ll only be for a second. I promise, I’ll be back.”

She makes another sound of protest, but she doesn’t start bawling her eyes out. Madara takes it as a win. 

Carefully, he lowers Mebuki’s corpse to the ground, folds her arms over her chest. She looks peaceful, at least. Madara places one last kiss to her forehead. He can’t take both of them out of the cave, and he knows for a fact that if she were still . . . _alive_ (oh, sage, he’s going to cry again later, she’s really _dead_ ) she’d want him to take Sakura out of here first. 

He picks the baby back up, just as she starts to kick her little legs, and she calms back down. 

He makes sure to go slow when leaving, the cave sloping upwards a little too steep for his liking. He’s very afraid of dropping the baby.

The sun is setting now, casting golden light across the land. His people stand awkwardly alongside the Senju, who also look unsure of what to do now.

Hikaku casts him a glance, brows furrowing.

“What were you doing down there? Where’s the med-?” he starts.

Madara cuts him off, already knowing the question, “Dead.”

And then his cousin looks down at Sakura and his eyes go wide.

“Is that a-a child!?” he sputters.

Madara sighs.

“Hikaku,” he starts, “I would like you to meet Sakura . . . my daughter.”

Before his cousin can get another word in, Hashirama appears in front of the gathered people, coming towards him, his younger brother and his cousin at his heels.

“Madara!”

Madara holds a hand out, a gesture telling Hashirama to step no closer. Luckily, his old friend obeys the request, though it was probably because of the threatening look in his eyes. It makes the younger Senju bristle, hand on his sword. His cousin glares back.

They have yet to notice Sakura. Oh boy.

Madara closes off his expression, putting his hand back down.

“You’re going to ask me about peace again, aren’t you?”

Hashirama nods, “Of course! Have you seen what we did today, Madara? Look at what our clans are capable of doing together! Think about it!”

Madara hums, and he thinks about for all but a moment, the birth of Sakura having already made a choice for him. Around them, the crowd gathers closer, waiting for his answer with baited breath.

“. . . Very well. I accept your offer.”

Before Hashirama can cheer, he interrupts, “But!”

And it makes his friend pause, and there’s a look of nervousness in his eyes, a question. He’s probably wondering what conditions he will say. He has all but one, that the village be made as soon as possible. But he doesn’t say that.

“I am not doing this for you . . . I suppose you could say I’m not even doing this for my clansmen . . .”

There’s whispers then, steadily rising in volume. There’s an even bigger question in the three Senju’s eyes before him.

He answers it, moving the fabric of the makeshift blanket out of the way to reveal his creation to the rest of the people, and he puffs his chest out a little, holding his head high.

“. . . I am doing this for my _daughter_ , a promise to my _wife_.”

Hashirama’s jaw drops to the floor, Tobirama and Touka’s eyes widen in surprise as they trade looks with each other, stepping back, and the crowd erupts into a cacophony of noise. There’s a lot of questions, a lot of disbelieving or worried words, but he pays them no mind. Sakura whines, snuggling into his chest, her face twisting up in distaste. He holds her closer, covers her ears as best as he can, and she stops squirming violently in favor of small wiggles. 

“Oh . . .” is the only word that leaves Hashirama’s mouth.

Madara only nods at him, “I would like to meet you and your clan at the Naka River to discuss what we want in depth. We can send letters back and forth to hash out what time. Will I see you there?”

Hashirama recovers from his shock, though he keeps glancing at Sakura, “Yes! Absolutely!”

Hashirama turns around and shouts at the top of his lungs, “Return back to the Senju lands!”

Madara shouts to his people, “Return back to the Compound!”

The crowds separate, and the Senju take off fast, having already collected their dead and their wounded. The Uchiha, however, remain where they are, looking at him. A woman steps forward.

“Madara-sama . . . Who . . . What is . . .”

He knows she’s trying to ask all the questions the rest of them have. He takes a deep breathe in and lets it out slowly, preparing himself to explain.

“Everyone, I would like you to meet my daughter and my heir, Sakura.”

The crowd seems to lean forward to get a better look at her. He has no doubt they recognize her as a newborn.

“Where is her mother?” asks someone from the crowd.

“ _Who_ is her mother?” comes another.

He sighs again, “Her mother was one of our hired medics, Haruno Mebuki. And she was my wife, or rather, she was going to be. I planned on proposing two weeks from today . . . Unfortunately,” he swallows, “she is no longer with us. I need help retrieving her body.”

There is a widespread cloud of darkness, sadness, above his clansmen then. They understand his grief, what it means for an Uchiha to lose their partner.

Three of them step closer, offering their help. He nods to the cave he crawled out of.

“She’s down in there. Please be careful when bringing her back up.”

They simply bow their heads in acknowledgment before hopping down into the pit.

Hikaku steps closer, looking at Sakura, “So, she really is yours, huh?”

“Yes, she is.”

He gets closer, wagging his finger in her face, and she tries to grab them.

“She’s absolutely adorable.” he chuckles.

Madara sends him a tired smile, “I know, right? I think she’ll have every Uchiha obeying her every command before her first birthday.”

Hikaku laughs, “Well, she’s already got me under her rule!”

His cousin pats his back, “I’m gonna go help the retrieval team, they’re taking a bit down there.”

And so he’s left to his own devices as the rest of the Uchiha begin to gather what they can. Madara sighs and looks down at Sakura. She looks back up at him. Somehow, her gaze is already very intense. He huffs, lifting her closer to plant a kiss on her cheek. He gets a little gurgle in return and a small, gummy smile. 

“Oh, you’re going to be the death of me . . .” he mutters. 

Later, when the sun has set and the moon is high in the sky, a funeral and memorial is held for Mebuki. They give her a classical Uchiha one, because she was going to be married into the family anyways, they say, so they should honor her properly. Madara is the one to push her pyre out onto their large lake, and he is the one to set in on fire with the sacred flames of Amaterasu. All the while, he’s holding Sakura, who’s finally properly dressed.

She gnaws on her fist as her head is turned to watch the fire. Madara’s attention is split between the ceremony and her. 

That night, he doesn’t really sleep. He saves himself from boredom by listening to Sakura’s little snores as she rests against his chest, close to his heart, while he lays on his side, curled around her, watching for any threat that would never actually come.

Madara thinks it was worth it, even if he got berated by Hikaku for sleeping past twelve while his child was awake and flailing her limbs around. 

Oh, Sakura is certainly going to be the death of him.


	2. A List of Firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three times Madara uses his sharingan, and the one time he meets someone new.

The first time Sakura crawls, it is about nine months into the village’s founding.

Madara has learned many things throughout the months, such as how to change diapers to how to get a baby to go back to bed with little to no fuss, all with the help of his clan’s parent couples or single parents like him. It had been difficult at first, frustrating, but gradually it became the norm to wake up at three in the morning just to feed his kid or to subject himself to babbling back to her when she made a sound or reading to her some silly little fairytail before she fell asleep. And he’s gotten himself thoroughly attached to her, maybe even dangerously so. He was breaching “over protective parent” territory, according to Naori, his other cousin. 

There were still rough patches of course, such as some people not trusting him to be a good father or the elders not particularly liking that he went and reproduced with somebody that wasn’t purely Uchiha. And there was still the matter of Mebuki’s death, something he has yet to get over. But that’s all they were, patches. And they were pretty easy to ignore (besides Mebuki (and Izuna, who’d died a few previous battles before her), that is), especially when you were carrying around a kid all day. 

He didn’t really trust anyone else to watch her, besides his closest friends and family, who were all as busy as him nowadays. There was no time to find a good sitter either, so the easiest solution was just bringing her along wherever he went.

. . . Okay maybe Madara _was_ a bit of an over protective parent. But the point still stands!

It happens on one of his days off, as he’s sitting at the kotatsu in their little living room. He’s reading a book and Sakura is scribbling with her crayons on some paper (well, it was more like smashing them against it and breaking them, but it still worked). Both have yet to actually change out of their sleep wear. Sakura looked adorable in cloud covered footy pajamas. Madara had a matching pair of pants given to him by Mito as a joke, but the jokes on her, they were comfortable as hell.

She stops her scribbling to stare at him, and he notices, so of course when he looks up, he stares back.

“What?” he asks with a smile, and he’s been getting better at “baby talk” as the others put it, because his tone of voice makes her giggle.

“What?” he asks again.

She gurgles at him, chewing on a crayon (it’s fine, they’re safe, he swears), fisting her paper in the other hand and shaking it at him.

“Bwa!” is all she says back.

“Oh? Really?”

“Bwa!”

“Hm, interesting. What else?”

She blows a raspberry at him and he laughs, shaking his head.

“BWA!” she says again, shaking the paper, and the crayon falls out of her mouth.

Ah, she probably wants him to take it.

“Give me a second, baby. Papa’s gotta stretch.”

He’s been sitting in this position for who knows how long, all hunched over and curled up like a shrimp.

But, unknown to him, Sakura didn’t like that answer. She did not want to wait.

While his eyes are closed as he stretches his arms above his head, bones cracking, she takes the opportunity. 

There’s a small thud, and Madara opens his eyes immediately, his head swiveling. And then his eyes land on Sakura, who is now valiantly trying to bring herself over to him on her arms and legs. 

And being surprisingly successful with it, even if she isn’t lifting her body off the floor fully.

It takes a couple of seconds for Madara to realize that she’s trying to _crawl_ to him. And when he does, he lights up like a christmas tree, excited. He moves quickly to get closer to her, to make it easier. He kneels a couple of feet away, arms held out to her, and his sharingan is spinning.

“Over here, Sakura! Come over here!” he pats his knees, and holds his hands back out to her.

Sakura blinks, and then she starts trying to wiggle forward instead of to the kotatsu.

“Come on! You’ve got this! Just a _little_ bit further, Sakura! I’m right here, right here!”

She babbles at him, a little frustrated, and she gets about halfway to him before she starts to get fed up. Madara knows a crying fit when he sees it by now, and there’s already tears spilling down her cheeks. He moves closer, scoops her up, lifting her in the air above him.

“Yaaay! You did it!”

She blinks owlishly at him before she smiles, clapping her hands, laughing, the paper crinkling.

He brings her back down, pecks her cheek, and she babbles at him again, her hands patting his face. Ah, that’s right, the paper.

He carefully takes it from her, and really it’s just lines of color, nothing intelligible or recognizable. He praises her for it anyways. Because dammit she made it for him.

“Ah, my little artist. Wanna know where it’s going?”

She blinks at him, “Ba?”

“Do you know _where_?

“. . . Ibah?”

“It’s going on the icebox!”

She starts to do that excited, happy breathing thing that babies do, her hands clapping again, “Ibah!”

They walk to the kitchen to where the big, cold, metal box sits. One it, there’s some important papers, like identifications and calendars and messily scrawled lists. Alongside those, all sorts of papers with more of that scribbled nonsense. He grabs one of the spare magnets, a little bee, and he adds the newest piece of art to the collage. He puts a hand on his hip as he looks at Sakura.

“Think it looks good there?”

“Ah,” she says, chewing on her fingers

He puts another kiss on her cheek as he pulls at her hand to get her to stop, “Thought so. Now, you wanna go see Uncle Hashirama? So we can go brag about what you did?”

“EH!”

He gets a napkin, cleaning off the spit, “Alright. Gotta get you dressed first.”

All he gets is a spit bubble as an answer, and he sighs, getting another napkin. Sakura was a “drooler and bitter” as Hikaku had put it. Well, he was certainly right about the drooling part, and Madara was a little less than excited for when the bitting came. He walks into his bedroom, which has now become more like a shared one with Sakura, one of the corners of the room dedicated to being her own little space, crib and all.

He wrangles her into some shorts and a short sleeved top because she’d somehow managed to worm her way out of everything else. She whines as she attempts to grab the short’s legs with her toes. He grabs her feet.

“We can’t have you going out naked, Sakura.”

She whines again, angrier, and she slaps her little fists against the bed he has her laying down on. 

He squeezes her feet, “Nope, can’t do that, baby. Gotta wear clothes. I know you hate pants and stuff, but it’s gotta be done.”

She huffs, giving up. He lets go of her feet, tickling her stomach to get her to stop frowning. Her laughter is loud, giddy.

“There we go! Now, behave, I gotta go change. Will you be a good girl and behave?”

Sakura just grabs at her feet, rolling around. Eh, good enough. He throws on a new pair of pants and shirt quickly.

When he turns back around, Sakura’s shorts are on the floor and she’s kicking her legs in triumph. He sighs. _Dammit_ , he thought he’d put a belt on her.

After a few more minutes of struggling to get her to put the pants back on and getting her to wear a belt, they’re finally ready to go, all they have to do is put on shoes.

He slips on his sandals, before he fights her again to get her to wear hers. She had yellow ones with little blue flowers on the sides. They looked nice with the rest of her outfit, as dark as it was. 

The weather is nice outside, sun shining, a breeze blowing through.

He looks at her, “Ready?”

“Ba!”

And with that they set off to find Hashirama.

When they do find him, he’s outside in his garden with Mito. And they don’t really believe him that Sakura can crawl yet, when he tells them. Sakura, however, ever so gratefully helped prove him right when she ended up crawling into a puddle of mud close by (she’s going to need a bath later, which was a small hell on it’s own. She did not like bath time and neither did he when she acted up). Hashirama and Mito went a little wild, but it was understandable.

He smiles when Tobirama and Touka drop by and see her trying to crawl to the door to see them. Touka cackles at Tobirama’s despairing look.

“Oh _no_ , she’s a fast learner.”

“That a bad thing, cousin?”

“It means she’s going to be a little _nightmare_ when she learns how to walk! Look at how fast she already is!”

Everyone laughs at Tobirama’s plight.

Whatever, Sakura may be a little nightmare, but she’s Madara’s little nightmare and that’s what matters to him.

The first time Sakura walks, a full year has passed, she has yet to say her first words outside of babbles (and even those have been slowly fading, and he’s a little worried), and her birthday is in a month. She’s gotten a bit bigger, and her hair is finally growing in, and he can see that she now has the unfortunate blessing/curse that is his hair type. She’s already got a wild pink mop on her head to prove it. Madara hopes she doesn’t develop a hatred for him when he tries to brush her hair out. Her teeth are starting to come in, too, so that means biting will happen soon.

Madara himself has gotten a bit better as well, finally coming to terms with the deaths of his precious people, but it was still a little hard. Especially with the elders breathing down his neck, waiting like vultures for a chance to catch him off guard. But Sakura, bless her, was getting good at picking up on tones and remembering voices, and anytime the elders tried to talk to him, she’d start crying or yelling loudly over them. She was not very fond of them, as evident by the time she’d attempted to bite one of them. Madara had nearly laughed but stopped himself just in time, not wanting to get a lecture about respect or whatever.

Currently, they’re on his bed, and he’s lightly and carefully throwing her around on it. If the elders were there, they would have been appalled. Jokes on them, throwing babies around were important for development and Sakura was a fan of defying gravity, going by how she screamed in joy every time she flew through the air and made grabby hands when she landed on the bed. Plus, he used a bit of chakra to keep her neck safe and stronger, so it’s good.

Madara picks her back up from where he’s kneeling in the middle of the bed. 

“Again?” he asks.

She screams again, kicking her feet. He gently tosses her forward onto the pillows.

“Woo!”

Sakura laughs, screaming again, making the grabby hands again. He picks her back up again.

“Again?” he asks, closer to her face.

She smacks his cheek, yelling. He throws her again.

Then there’s a knock at his front door. He pauses, looking to his door and then looking back to Sakura. He grabs her, helping her settle into the pillows.

“Wait here?” he asks.

Sakura is already a very intelligent child, surprisingly, and although she has yet to _attempt_ speech, she has begun to _understand_ it. She rolls around, sinking deeper into the pile. He pats her head.

“Good girl,” and then he’s slipping off the bed to go down the hall and to the front door.

\---------------

Sakura blinks up at the ceiling, waiting for Papa to come back, clenching and unclenching her fists in her shirt. It was more like a dress on her, Papa having just gotten it from his closet and throwing it on her. It was comfortable and smelled like him. She can hear him talking with someone at the door, but he doesn’t sound very happy.

She scrunches her brows, turning her head. 

The other voice sounds like a lady, and it sounds like the one lady that keeps bothering Papa. She frowns.

She should go and try to cheer Papa up. But how?

An idea. She has to get to him! But . . . How?

Another idea.

Sakura turns herself on her stomach, looking up at the headboard of the bed. It’s a round thing with sticks coming down and attaching to the frame. 

In her toddler mind, this was no biggie. Little did she know, she was just about to make her Papa’s day one of the best.

She scoots herself forward, wrapping her hands around the wooden sticks of the headboard. 

\---------------

Madara leans against the doorframe, pinching his nose.

“For the last time, _no_ , I will _not_ let you babysit my child.”

The woman in front of him pouts.

Her name was Aoi, and she was a young widow in the Uchiha family, and she’s been bothering him for the past _two weeks_. 

Apparently, she’s _very_ interested in him. In _many_ ways. Unfortunately for her, Madara does not return her affections, and he doesn’t feel like doing it any time soon, or any time at all for that matter.

He hopes she’ll understand the word “No” very soon, or else he might just commit a hate crime.

“Oh, please Madara? Please? Just give me _one chance_ to see that pretty little angel!”

Ah, did he mention she didn’t use any honorifics for him? Even if they didn’t know each other outside of name?yeah, she did that because she wanted to “get a little closer” to him. _Ugh_.

That’s also the reason, he’d figured out, she wanted to babysit Sakura.

“ _No_ ,” he growls, glaring.

The woman slumps over, upset, and she makes a sound in the back of her throat.

“But why!?”

He moves, beginning to close the door as he talks, “Well, you see, you don’t meet any of the . . . _Qualifications_ for the job. _So_ , so sorry, Aoi- _san_. _Terribly_ sorry.”

“But-!”

“ _Good day_ , Aoi-san.”

And with that he closes the door. He can hear her grumble something under her breath before stomping away.

“ _Finally_ ,” he mumbles, stomping back to the bedroom.

What he sees makes him stop, gasp, sharingan flickering into existence.

Sakura is standing, alebiet with support, but that wasn’t the only thing. 

She’s taking _steps_ , walking sideways towards the edge.

Sakura turns her head towards him, and she must mistake his look for something negative, because her little shoulders hunch as a guilty little look crosses her features and she lets go of the polls. Madara runs over, catching her under her arms to keep her from hitting the bed.

“No, no! It’s okay, baby! It’s okay!”

She looks up at him, questioning, carefully reaching for the polls again. He nods, eager. She grabs on, and pulls herself back up, with his help this time. 

He pulls himself back up on the bed, in his previous spot. This time he sits cross legged. leaning forward and holding his hands out to her.

“Sakura, can you come this way? This way, Sakura?”

She looks at the polls, turns her head to look at him, and then back at the polls. Oh, she’s probably nervous, he realizes. 

“Come on, Sakura! You can do it! You just gotta walk right here!”

He pats his hands down in front of him, “Right here!”

She looks back at him, and then she looks determined. She lets go of the polls, wobbling, and her little feet stomp as they move to turn her around.

“You’re doing great, baby! Great!”

She starts to stumble forward. Her steps are messy, heavy, and she has to look down to keep track of them and to make sure she doesn’t fall, and they’re slow, but she’s _doing it_. She’s _walking_. Madara feels himself smile.

“Almost there! You’re so close!”

Sakura falls forward into his lap and he scoops her up into a tight hug, cheering.

“You did it! Sakura, baby, you did it!”

She looks up at him, whispering, “Di ee?”

“Did it!”

She smiles at him, giggling, wrapping her limbs around him as best as she can to return the hug. He falls backwards, lifting her into the air, and she squeals in delight at being held so high. He puts his feet against her stomach to lift her higher, holding onto her hands, and she squeals again.

“Think you can fly next?” he asks jokingly.

Madara has to stop her from jumping off the bed later as a result, because she may know how to walk a bit, but jumping _without_ injury was _not_ guaranteed. He forgives her for it, though, because honestly, he really can’t stay mad at her.

The next day, when he shows the others what Sakura can do, they all laugh at Tobirama thumping his head against the wall when her little feet patter towards him. He grumbles as he picks her up, though, so at least that means he has _some_ endearment for her.

Madara laughs at the elders when they see her wobbling next to him on the way home, when they look appalled that she’s already figured out what to do, despite being a prematurely born baby. Serves them right for thinking less of his child.

When Sakura first speaks, two and a half years have gone by, and Sakura is two years old now. 

Tobirama was right about her being fast, terribly so, especially when she’d figured out running, and Madara has no idea where she got that from because while he and Mebuki had been fast, they were never naturally quick, but at least she stopped running away when asked (she still tried to avoid bath time, though). She’s gotten bigger, and they don’t need to buy diapers anymore because she's already surpassed potty training (and he can’t help but sigh in relief that it didn’t take long for her to learn), and now she just had to wear pull ups until she got the hang of it. He could definitely confirm now that Sakura had his hair, her waves and curls already falling past her shoulders. At least she didn’t mind him brushing it, so that was _really_ good considering he knew how easy and badly it could tangle. So long as she didn’t bite him with her new teeth, it was good.

Madara himself has finally begun to heal properly, Mebuki and Izuna’s deaths no longer hurting him as much. The elders have started to give up on their conquest to either demote him or get him to pick a different heir. A few have even actually begun to become _fond_ of Sakura, after she’d been “respectful” (which was really just her trying to bow to them and giving them stuff like flowers or just being friendly in general once they left him alone).

It happens during a meeting with the Inuzuka, discussing and laying down base lines and rules for them joining the village. 

Sakura is in his lap, and sometimes the Inuzuka would wiggle or tap their fingers at her when they weren’t talking or writing, already endeared. One even tossed a little bean bag ball at her, and they’ve been rolling it back and forth for the past ten minutes. Madara didn’t mind, if anything, he encouraged it, to keep her distracted. It would be very bad if she’d decided to tear up their current treaty because she was _bored_.

One of the Inuzuka makes a silly face at her, and she giggles. The leader speaks up after signing another line on the paperwork that would integrate them into the village at last.

“Hey, if you don’t mind, Uchiha-sama, can I hold the little bugger you got there?”

Madara, along with the Senju brothers, is a little surprised. But then again,he should have expected it. He nods.

“Sure. Give me a second.”

He looks at Sakura and Sakura stares back.

“The nice Inuzuka lady wants to hold you, Sakura. What do you say? Wanna go sit in her lap? Maybe if you’re nice, she’ll let you pet one of her wolves.”

Said wolves, the ones that were the Inuzuka’s leader’s companions, perk up at the word “pet”.

Sakura thinks for a moment, and surprisingly, she shakes her head, clutching his shirt and hiding her face in it.

“Ah, sorry, she must be feeling a little shy today, Inuzuka-sama.”

The woman laughs, “It’s all good! Maybe I can try my luck next time?”

And then there’s a mumbling sound. From Sakura. Madara looks down quickly. Hashirama brightens up and Tobirama leans forward a bit.

Hashirama elaborates when the Inuzuka send questioning looks, “She might be saying her first words!”

They too lean forward, but theirs is more excited.

Madara’s sharingan is already spinning, “What was that, Sakura? Can you speak a little louder, baby?”

More mumbling, and she kicks her feet out a bit.

“I still can’t hear you, baby, you need to speak up.”

And then, at the very top of her lungs for everybody to hear-!

“FUCK NO!”

The room is silent for a good few seconds. And then Madara starts to laugh. He starts to laugh and he starts to laugh harder and harder until it bursts out loudly, his sharingan flickering out of existence. The Inuzuka follow him, falling over one another. Hashirama and Tobirama look appalled, but on different ends of the spectrum. The leader of the Inuzuka slaps her hand on the table.

“Oh, she’s an assertive one, ain’t she!?” 

“Where did she _learn that_!?” Tobirama mutters.

“Oh dear . . .” says Hashirama.

“S-Sakura, Sakura, sweety, you can’t- you can’t _say_ that, baby,” Madara chokes out through his laughter, “That’s a nono word that you can’t say until you’re older!” 

Sakura yells again, “Fuck no!”

The Inuzuka and Madara laugh even harder. Tobirama drops his head into his hands, groaning, and Hashirama stuffles a chuckle as he looks away.

“Oh, this is great!” yells the Inuzuka advisor.

Sakura looks proud and while Madara is also proud, in a way, he absolutely can’t believe that these are his child’s first words.

“Sakura, where did you hear those?” he asks.

And, to everyone’s surprise, she points at _Tobirama_ , who looks even more appalled at her accusation.

“Madara,” he says, “I am _so_ sorry.”

Everyone in the room doubles over in laughter again, and this time Hashirama joins in, and Tobirama deflates in his seat, his soul practically leaving his body.

As it turns out, she’d heard him whisper it when he had seen that large spider in Hashirama’s office the other day, to which he’d promptly turned right back around to leave his older brother and Madara to deal with it. 

Goodness, Sakura is certainly full of surprises. But he’s gonna have to keep her away from the elders for a bit until she learns some different vocabulary . . .

When Sakura is three years old, Madara meets Zetsu for the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> YEEHAW


End file.
